Neutron Star vs Quark Star in the Multimessenger Era

Abstract

Neutron stars (NSs) and self-bound quark stars (QSs) remain the two primary candidates for the compact objects observed as pulsars and in gravitational-wave (GW) events from binary mergers. Using a physics-agnostic equation of state (EOS) for compact star (CS) matter constructed via nonparametric Gaussian process regression, we perform Bayesian inference of the properties of NSs and QSs by analyzing multimessenger observations from GW170817, PSR J0740+6620, PSR J0030+0451, PSR J0437$-$4715, and PSR J0614$-$3329 together with {\it ab initio} calculations from perturbative quantum chromodynamics and chiral effective field theory. We consider competing cases arising from three scenarios: the NS scenario, in which all CSs are NSs; the udQS scenario, in which all CSs are up-down QSs; and the two-family scenario, in which NSs and strange QSs (SQSs) coexist. Our results based on systematic Bayesian model selection indicate that the most favored case belongs to the two-family scenario, with a Bayes factor of $6.1$ relative to the udQS case. In this case, PSR J0740+6620 is favored as an SQS, while the other five CSs, including the two in GW170817, are favored as NSs. The corresponding maximum mass of a static CS is $M_\text{TOV} = 1.72_{-0.16}^{+0.18} M_\odot$ for NSs and $M_\text{TOV} = 2.63_{-0.31}^{+0.36} M_\odot$ for SQSs at the $68\%$ confidence interval. Moreover, the inferred sound speed in both NS and QS matter increases monotonically and saturates at high densities, whereas a pronounced peak structure is found in the NS scenario. Our work provides a new framework for identifying the nature of individual CSs and constraining the properties of dense matter in both NSs and QSs. In particular, the most favored case provides potential astrophysical support for the absolute stability of strange quark matter according to the Witten hypothesis.